


The Soul Job

by biggestbaddestwolf



Category: Leverage
Genre: Demons, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Ghosts, M/M, Multi, OT3, Other, Paranormal, Supernatural Elements, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-05 18:21:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggestbaddestwolf/pseuds/biggestbaddestwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another world, Nate Ford is the human ex-investigator for one of the biggest vampire families in America. The leverage crew is a motley crew of supernatural creatures who are now dedicated to looking out for those who can't protect themselves from paranormal thieves and con men. This time, they're after a loan shark that collects the souls of those that don't pay up- and their plan puts a werewolf Eliot right in the line of fire. And, all the while, Sterling is tempting Nate with his old job again. Based loosely off of the Tap Out Job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sterling and a New Client

**Author's Note:**

> The con is based off of the Tap Out Job.

The moon was a silver hook of a fingernail in the sky, halfway covered by clouds. Underneath it, Nathan Ford lifted the collar of his jacket and was about to step into his car, but a shadow over his shoulder stopped him from opening the door. One hand slipped into his pocket, fingers curling around a small silver trinket.

“Hello, Ford.”

Nate heard the tone, the steady and familiar pronunciation, more so than the greeting itself. He resisted the brief flash of temptation to pull the silver trinket out of his pocket and brandish it. Nothing would happen that warranted that sort of action, even if he was sorely tempted. He took a deep breath, exhaling long and slow. “Sterling. What brings you above ground for the evening?”

Sterling’s non-laugh was a sharp noise, an unimpressed, throwaway of a sound. “Funny, Nate. Funny. And here I thought you’d lost your sense of humor after all these years.”

“And here I thought you never had one,” Nate retorted smoothly. He pasted a mirthless smile on his lips and turned to face Sterling. For a moment he tried to describe, to himself, exactly what Sterling was to him. An ex-rival? Not quite; Nate would never become what Sterling was, nor could Sterling ever be what Nate had once been. An ex-ally, an ex-friend? Only in the most surface of terms…there had been a time, yes, when Nate would have considered Sterling a friend, but as time went by, more and more he doubted that Sterling would have ever said the same. Ex-coworkers? Maybe. It was the closest term. It would do. “What do you want, Sterling?”

Sterling’s suit was expensive, more expensive than he used to wear. The cuff links, too, were in a higher price bracket than Sterling’s old ones, glimmering red stones set in gold. Nate would have whistled, impressed, if that wouldn’t have inflated Sterling’s already enormous ego. Instead, he simply registered the outfit, the new shine on new shoes under street lights. Sterling had moved up in the world, recently. Nate wondered how high.

“I just thought that we could talk for a moment,” Sterling drawled. “Unless you have someplace to be…?”

Sterling’s tone said that he already knew where Nate had to be and when. Nate didn’t know how the man knew, or why the man cared, but Nate didn’t like it one bit. He sucked on his teeth, glancing past Sterling’s shoulder. He half expected monsters to pour out the shadows of the alleyway behind Sterling, tendrils of smoke and darkness curling around the man in Nate’s imagination. It would have been appropriate.

Nate leaned on his car and crossed his arms. “Okay, then. Let’s talk. What do you want, Sterling?”

“To be perfectly honest,” Sterling replied, mimicking Nate and looking slightly past the man as if he were paying attention to a hundred other things at once, “It’s not so much what I want as what my employers want.” He raised an eyebrow knowingly at Nate. “Your former employers.”

Nate felt his own grip tighten on his arms, before realizing how tense his entire body had become. “They can go to hell. No offense.”

Sterling let out that unamused snort of laughter again, shaking his head. He wagged a scolding finger at Nate. “I thought you might say that. Told them just that.”

“Oh they let you speak in front of them now? Congratulations on the promotion.” The familiar tension, the jitteriness, the indecision as to whether to run or punch Sterling in the face, all of it was coming back in one big rush. Few individuals dragged this much hatred out of Nate- lots of things, lots of ideas did, but few people really lit that particular spark. Sterling was a professional at it.

“You should consider their offer, Nate.”

“There’s an offer on the table?” Nate wasn’t interested.

Sterling nodded slowly. “You were good at what you did. Very good.” He smiled a toothy grin, a baring of teeth. “Not as good as I am, obviously, but you were useful. You did…good work.” Sterling said the word good like a child repeating a complex word that they’d heard their mother and father use. No connection to it, no real understanding, nor any real desire to understand. “You could do more.”

Nate pretended to consider it. “I don’t think so.”

“Don’t turn this down,” Sterling said, his words stretched with deliberate warning. “Do you really think that this…game you’re playing, this little team of strays, that’s doing any good? More good than your old-”

“Sterling, let me tell you something about good, and doing good,” Nate interjected, pushing himself off the car and taking a step closer, imaginary creatures in the shadows be damned. “What I did for your bosses? That wasn’t good work. That was me making things more convenient for them. That was me being deluded into thinking I was doing good. Just like your job, my job was to make their life as easy as possible, and if it got down more quickly because I thought I was some sort of…white knight…then they let me think that. But the moment, the split second it became the slightest bit inconvenient, they got cold feet. That’s not what being good is.”

Sterling’s lip curled into a little sneer. “And what, pray tell, is being ‘good,’ then, exactly?”

“It’s knowing when to make the inconvenient call. It’s knowing when to say that just because it’s easy to let something waste away and-” He choked on his words for a moment, and Sterling caught it, his eyes shining in cruel curiosity at the sound, “-and die, doesn’t mean that’s what you should do. Being good is pushing back. Something that you, James, would know nothing about.”

“Well, maybe I don’t know much about being good, but I do know something about not looking a gift horse in the mouth. They’re willing to forgive your little…mistakes, Nate. Don’t press your luck.”

“Pressing my luck is what I do best,” Nate replied smoothly. “Do you want to keep pressing yours?” He slipped his hand back into his pocket and pulled out the silver trinket he’d been holding so tightly before.

Sterling eyed the silver, and the street light made it difficult to tell whether it was reflecting the light or glowing slightly all on its own. He glared at Nate while taking a cautious step back. “You don’t have it in you anymore for that to be worth anything. You don’t have the faith.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Nate queried. “You know that I did. You know exactly how much faith I had. Do you really want to risk it because you think that maybe, maybe I’ve lost all my faith?”

“I know you did.”

“Not in this,” Nate promised threateningly. “Just in your kind of people.”

Sterling cleared his throat. “Okay, Ford.” He held his hands up in front of him. “Have it your way. We’ll talk about this when you’ve calmed down.” Before lowering his hands completely, he adjusted his cufflinks. “Until later.” He threw off a short wave before strolling away.

Nate waited until Sterling left before exhaling again. All the tension and emotions left him at once, leaving him feeling drained. He looked down at the cross in his hand. It had been the reflection of the street light, he knew. Nothing more.

*

For Eliot, the morning after typically meant a feeling similar to being hungover, his senses raw and vulnerable while his head pounded and his stomach churned. Some people, he knew, felt their best the morning after, feeling freed and more themselves- which usually meant more human. He was not one of those people, and he honestly wasn’t sure if he’d want to be. So he grit his teeth and beared the barrage of sounds when, at ten am the next morning, he entered the coffee shop.

Day time client-meetings happened in the coffee shop. Hardison had bought the coffee shop a year ago, swearing that it was a more comfortable place for human clients to meet them. Late night work moved to the bar down the street, also owned by Hardison as of about a year ago. It was all about the type of client, Hardison had prattled on, all about making them feel as comfortable as possible.

Eliot only occasionally let Hardison know that he’d made the right call.

Scanning the room, Eliot laid eyes on Nate, sitting by the counter with a rapidly cooling coffee. Eliot nodded towards an occupied booth when Nate looked up at him. They both walked over towards it, Eliot hoping he didn’t look as bad as he felt right then. He let Nate take the lead.

“Mr. Parilla?” The booth occupant looked up at them sharply, shocked. Mr. Parilla smelled of boiler room metal and the dust of rusted pipes. He was a worn man, maybe mid-fifties, with bags under his eyes that hung like weights, and knobby finger joints that looked like it might ache to hold the tea cup he’d been lifting to his mouth. He wasn’t dressed very well- a green and purple windbreaker over a green t-shirt, old khakis. Eliot had read over the information that Hardison had pieced together on this potential client; no amount of bios could reflect the exhaustion in the man’s bones. “I’m Nathan Ford. This is my associate Eliot. May we sit down?”

Mr. Parilla- a slender man, a completely and utterly unthreatening man- nodded hurriedly, still recovering from the shock of being spoken to in the first place. He gestured across from him. “Yes, yes, please. Thank you for meeting with me.”

Nate slid into the booth first, and then Eliot. Years of experience dealing with threats told Eliot he didn’t have to worry about this one, and instead focused on being a second ear for Nate. Nate had taken his coffee with him, and Eliot noted that Nate had barely had any of it to drink. Sitting this close, the smell of coffee mostly filled Eliot’s nose, but not entirely. “It’s no problem at all. I don’t want to waste your time, Mr. Parilla, so let’s start from the beginning. Why are you here?”

The client’s voice was thin from stress but thick with emotion, trembling. “It’s my daughter. Rebecca Parilla, she’s a good woman. She’s had it rough, raising her son. Bright boy, just like his mother.” Mr. Parilla shook his head. “She…she fell into hard times in the past couple of years. After her husband passed, money was tight, and there’s only so much I can do to help. Especially since she had too much pride to let me help.” His lip quirked upwards, as if remembering some particularly fond debate they’d had. Eliot had seen that look on a few clients. He pressed his lips together and prepared for the worst.

Mr. Parilla coughed, clearing his throat. He placed his tea back on the table. “The funeral had set them back, set us all back a bit. She couldn’t get a loan from a bank, but she needed the money to pay bills and…” He couldn’t say it, could barely shape his mouth around the words.

“Did she go to a loan shark?” Nate filled in.

Mr. Parilla nodded. “My wife, she begged Becca not to. This man, she said, this man wasn’t right. There were rumors about this man, about the sorts of things he did when someone couldn’t pay him…but Becca was so desperate, and this loan shark, this beast, he was so convincing…” Mr. Parilla gestured angrily with his hands. “She ended up in a bad kind of contract with him. Couldn’t pay him back fast enough, not with the interest he wanted.”

“This loan shark…what did he do next?” Nate pushed gently. He clasped his hands together on top of the table. “Why come to us about a local thug?”

Shaking his head no, Mr. Parilla elaborated, clearly needing to make them see it as he did. “He’s not just a thug, Mr. Ford. He’s…my wife, she dabbles in some things. Not bad things, not at all. Healing, herbs, she helps the local kids get over colds and broken bones. It was never my world, what she does, but I’ve always accepted it. Always trusted her in things like this. And then, the morning after my Becca went to argue her case with the loan shark, she just…” His voice caught. “She didn’t wake up from her sleep. Her little boy called me, had to call his grandfather and say that mommy was breathing but couldn’t be woken up. It was like there was nothing there but a machine functioning.

“She’s been in the hospital for a week now,” Mr. Parilla continued. “But the doctors can’t find a single thing wrong. My wife, she says that our daughter’s soul is gone. Not in a spiritual, she’s passed on way, but that it was stolen from her. And she says…”

“She thinks it was that loan shark, doesn’t she?” Eliot’s head pounded harder now, as he felt the hand that had been resting in his lap clench tightly into a fist. He’d seen this before, a couple of times, long before working with Nate. Back when he might have been an intermediary in this kind of transaction, or he would have been hired to retrieve…he shook his head and tried to focus on the present, not his own past.

Mr. Parilla nodded, swallowing a lump in his throat. “I don’t know if that’s what happened, Mr. Ford, but I know that I trust my wife, and I want my baby girl back with her son, whatever it takes. According to my wife, you and your people, you can fix this.”

Nate held up a hand. “That’s not exactly true. I don’t do spells, or magic. We can’t summon your daughter’s soul back into her body.” Mr. Parilla’s face started to crumple, to collapse under the stress of barely holding on. Nate continued, quickly, before the man broke down. “What we can do is find the man responsible for this. We can make him pay. And we will do everything in our power to get her soul back for you. That is what we do, Mr. Parilla.”

Mr. Parilla glanced back and forth between Nate and Eliot. They didn’t exactly look the part of magicians or sorcerers, or anyone with the power to move souls. And what Nate explained was exactly the truth- they couldn’t just offer up Rebecca’s soul to Mr. Parilla. The people with that kind of power rarely worked as good Samaritans. Someone with the power to force her soul to return would ask for money. A lot of money. Nathan Ford never asked for anything from his clients accept honesty and a certain amount of patience.

That was usually all they had to offer him, anyway. Mr. Parilla dipped his head down, as if the answer to his problems could all be seen in his coffee. He sighed. “I just want my daughter back. She doesn’t deserve this.”

 

When Mr. Parilla left, Eliot spoke. “You know she’s probably not the only one.”

“She’s definitely not,” Nate answered. “Someone doesn’t take a soul as payment for a loan on a whim. I want Hardison to do research, look at the hospital that Mr. Parilla’s daughter is housed in. I want to know exactly how many other cases like hers are in there.” After a thoughtful moment, he amended that. “Expand it to all nearby hospitals. I want a head count on approximately how many souls this guy has.”

“I’d be surprised if it was anything less than a dozen, two dozen, at any given time,” Eliot said. He gestured over to a waiter and ordered breakfast. He hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before, and was famished. “Souls are powerful, and they’re compact, once you’ve got them. If you know the right places, the right neighborhoods where other paras are willing to turn a blind eye…you could make a hell of a lot of money trading in them. Or if you’re smart, you trade them for favors. Spells done, talismans bartered, that kind of thing.”

Nate rubbed his chin. “But still, selling souls isn’t exactly legal, not even by this city’s standards. Get caught doing it…”

“And the vampire clans will come down hard on you. Or the magic community will.”

“Exactly,” Nate said. “So it’s risky, but the payoff is big…Probably a magic user, like a necromancer, or maybe a demon.”

“It ain’t no magic user,” Eliot snorted, slouching back in his seat. Every muscle ached as if it had all been warped and shoved into too small a box. “It’s a demon. If we’re thinking this guy’s doing big numbers of souls, he needs to be able to easily take them. The contract set up? The loan shark act- that’s pure demon, right there. A necromancer needs a ritual to pull a soul, probably needs a sacrifice to mess with a living soul, witches and shamans need stuff too…nah, local guy needs to be able to do it quickly, efficiently. So soul snatching comes naturally.”

Which wasn’t something that Eliot really liked to think about. There weren’t many laws that every paranormal was expected to follow in the city. Most of them were tailor made to protect the major vampire clans, or the occasional large werewolf pack. Dealing in souls was expressly forbidden; doing it in bulk was nearly unthinkable. But Eliot couldn’t make the situation make sense without the loan shark having done this to each of its marks. His lip curled in disgust as he let out a low, rumbling growl.

“Relax, Eliot,” Nate said offhandedly. “Getting pissed right now won’t do anything. We’ve got to find out more about this loan shark. Did you get his name?”

Eliot nodded. “Already texted it to Hardison. By the time we all meet up, he’ll have plenty of info for us.”

“Good.” Nate pulled out his phone and sent a text message, probably letting Sophie know that they’d taken the job. “I want this one to be quick. We’re not just going to get Rebecca’s soul back.”

“Of course not. We need the other souls, too.”

“Not just that,” Nate said, shaking his head. “What we need to do is completely dismantle this guy’s operation. If we steal his souls, if that’s all we do, he’ll rope people in again.” He may come after the crew, Eliot thought, but he knew Nate wasn’t thinking about that. “No, we need to make sure that this guy is never able to steal another soul again.”

“He can steal a soul without a reputation,” Eliot pointed out.

Nate looked like he was mentally a million miles away, already mapping a plan, even without all the information. “Then we take away his power.”

Eliot wasn’t sure whether he liked the sound of it. If they could pull that off, it would be a more neatly finished job than anything they’d managed to do before, but at the same time…playing with that kind of fire was the exact sort of dangerous that Nate overlooked. That Nate thought he could outrun. That Eliot was actually there to outrun.

The waiter brought over Eliot’s food, and placed it on the table. Eliot started in on the steak and eggs immediately. After the first bite, he spoke again. “So, you gonna explain why Sterling’s stench is all around you, or are we just pretending that ain’t a thing?” Nate looked surprised. Eliot rolled his eyes. “You really think I wasn’t gonna notice? Might be the day after the full moon, but I’ve still got a nose.”

Nate drank some of that cold coffee, and made a face at its temperature. He shouldn’t have waited so long to drink it, Eliot thought, that was his own fault. “It’s nothing, Eliot. Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s my job to worry about it,” Eliot countered.

“No, Eliot, no it’s not,” Nate sighed. “Not about this.” Eliot still threw him a nasty side eye, between bites of food. “Really, it’s okay. It was just Sterling sticking his nose into my business. I told him off, and he left. Most unexciting night I’ve had in a long time.”

Eliot couldn’t smell lies with Nate, because Nate didn’t get nervous about lies. Like a truly committed conman- like any of the crew members- a lie didn’t trip them up. No nervousness, no sped up heartbeat, no adrenaline, and Nate knew when to look someone in the eye and when to turn away. That didn’t mean Eliot didn’t know bullshit when he heard it.

For the moment, though, he’d let it go. He’d press later, maybe when the job was over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew learns about the mark, Nate decides on a con. Eliot, Parker, and Hardison address Sterling.

“Hey guys!”

Even Eliot jumped when he opened the door and Parker was standing directly in front of him, beaming. Nate snorted at her delight; Eliot rolled his eyes. “Hey, Parker, could you keep it down?” Eating had gone a long way in improving his mood, but it was still before three pm on the day after a full moon. Parker’s exuberance, while always welcomed, wasn’t something that Eliot could handle at that part of the day. “My head is killing me.”

“Oh, right, cause of the thing with the shifting and the moon, right,” Parker said, nodding to herself like she’d forgotten. Considering how long they’d known each other at this point- had it really been three years? Nearly 36 full moons and nearly 36 mornings after-, it was ridiculous that she could have forgotten. It was more than it didn’t matter to her, a fact that had always worked in her favor with Eliot. “So I guess you don’t want to hear about how Hardison got into an argument with his laptop.”

Nate frowned as they both walked inside. “Again?”

“Isn’t Hardison supposed to be the computer-whisperer or something?” Eliot grunted. “Why’s it always feel like he’s fighting with them?”

“Me and Betty weren’t arguing,” Hardison shouted from the living-slash-briefing room. “She’s just a little jealous of Veronica, that’s all. I told her, Ronnie’s just better for a certain sort of snooping around, but you know how Betty can be.”

Parker twisted her mouth up in an expression that was clearly her trying to smother a laugh and a smile. “I still say he got their names wrong.” Eliot didn’t bother smothering the laugh, throwing an arm around Parker casually. They both walked into the main part of the office-apartment, where Hardison was busy setting up the briefing presentation. “Betty’s not speaking to him now. Or doing internet searches.” Parker leaned in and continued in a loud stage-whisper. “I think he really messed up.”

“That’s what happens when you don’t get to talk to real women until you’re a grown ass man,” Eliot commented. “You end up having to play boyfriend to a couple of laptops.”

“I’ll have you know that Betty and Veronica are ladies,” Hardison turned to face Eliot and Parker with an expression that was far too serious for the given situation. “Classy, sophisticated ladies that need a tender, delicate touch.”

“Which you can’t give them,” Eliot drawled.

Hardison opened his mouth to argue, but Parker spoke up. “Hardison, you’re better at touching non-computers.” Nate firmly decided to pay attention to anything but the shenangians of the three, who were slowly edging into flirting territory. It happened occasionally, when Eliot and Parker making fun of Hardison became more and more fond. It had become even more frequent when Parker had become more comfortable with thinking of the three of them as a group, and therefore an item. If anyone had any complaints, it certainly wasn’t the trio.

“As interesting as Hardison’s battles with his technology may or may not be, isn’t there a job we should be getting to?” Sophie’s voice came from her spot on the couch, where she was sitting quite comfortably. With the crew, away from non-para eyes, she was in her natural element; her fae skin shimmered even under the light of the apartment, no glamor in place to mask it. Nate moved to sit near her- not next to her, because that would be both unprofessional and distracting, but in the armchair to her left. She pet his hand absent-mindedly before deciding to hold it loosely.

Nate cleared his throat. “Uh, yes, Hardison? Please tell me whichever computer is hooked up to the projector is still on speaking terms with you.”

Hardison rolled his eyes animatedly. He pointed at Eliot. “I’ll deal with you and your words later. I got you.” Eliot snorted and moved to the couch with Parker, who grabbed the bowl of popcorn she’d prepared earlier and placed it in her lap. She offered Hardison, and then Eliot some. Both politely declined.

Standing in front of the rest of the crew, Hardison clapped his hands together before bringing the necessary information up on the screen. “Our mark’s name, I shit you not, is Kraven Waters. Full-blooded demon, he probably picked it late one night after crossing dimensions. I don’t know, maybe he thought the SyFy channel was really what the world looked like, and he wanted to sound like a character from one of their movies. Maybe all he had was comic books for inspiration. I don’t know, that isn’t the sort of thing that they keep in files on a person.”

“Hardison,” Nate warned carefully.

“Waters has been running a pretty lucrative loan shark business, if you define lucrative in ways that have nothing to do with money,” Hardison continued, getting back on track. “I mean, yeah, he gets his money back from people, but by all accounts, it looks like soul stealing is his main gig. It’s kind of an obsession of his, like a dragon and gold or whatever. Do dragons hoard gold?”

“Only the ones with taste,” Sophie replied in a deadpan. Hardison stared at her for a minute, unsure if she was joking or not. She gestured at him to continue.

“Soul stealing?” The moment that term was out in the air, Parker lost her playful easiness. She readjusted herself on the couch, pulling away from Eliot’s casually outstretched arm and leaning forward in her seat. “He’s taking them when people default on the loans?”

Hardison nodded, looking thrown off by Parker’s familiarity with the subject. “Yeah, actually…But this guy isn’t really selling them. He collects them. I cross referenced the symptoms that Eliot told me to look for with the nearby hospital records, to see what I could dig up. Keeping in mind that some of these cases are likely solvable by normal, non-para medicine…we’re look at two dozen souls here, people. Minimum.”

The crew fell silent for a moment as they considered the enormity of the situation. Eliot watched the faces of the rest of the team. Nate kept his face even and blank. That was the way Nate thought things through; quickly, barreling through them towards the next step of the plan. Whatever shock he felt wouldn’t come through on his face, but through the viciousness of the con he planned. Sophie’s mouth was partially opened in muted shock, Her eyes moving rapidly over the list of patients that Hardison had pulled up on the screen with photos and small bios.

Parker was intense. Too intense, Eliot thought, for it to be just be interest.

“How would Waters be storing the souls?” Nate asked after the silence.

“Now, I’m not exactly big on knowledge when it comes to soul-shipping or whatever,” Hardison replied, “But from what I could pick up in the couple of hours since you met with Parilla, there’s a few different ways to do it. Amulets, specially made phylactery bottles, even certain symbols engraved in wood or the skin could store a soul, technically.”

“Well, the surveillance pictures show that he can’t possibly be carrying twenty four souls on his arms,” Sophie said. “So where does that leave us?”

“Soul sinks,” Parker interjected shortly. She stood up, ignoring or just not noticing the surprised looks of the rest of the crew. She crossed her arms as she looked at the profiles that filled the screen. “They’re tiny little ritually prepared bottles that can store all different kinds of spirits. Portable, and they can be prepared ahead of time so that there’s no need to bind the soul to anything else.” She glanced over her shoulder towards the couch. “The downside is, well, they’re about the size of a large lipstick, so it’s easy to grab them. Once you get to them, at least. And anyone with that kind of collection is going to have a pretty big security system set up to keep it. We’re talking magic and mundane security. This guys has any brains, it’ll be difficult to get to the souls where they’re stored.”

“So then…” Nate stood up as well, gesturing as he moved to stand next to Parker. “…then we make him pull them out of storage. Force him to move them. Once they’re in transit…”

Parker let out a pfft. “Easy-peesy. I mean, I’d want an exact number to make sure I don’t miss one, but…” She shrugged.

Hardison raised his hand. “Uh, anybody else curious about how Parker knows so much about this?” He frowned in her direction. “Did someone try to…you know…”

Eliot hadn’t really considered that option before Hardison brought it up. A thief with a particular penchant for mystical artifacts, Parker had stumbled upon a very expensive collection during early heists with her old mentor. While Eliot and Hardison didn’t know the exact details, they knew that Parker and her mentor had triggered one of the artifacts while bringing in their haul. Parker’s mentor had his soul completely divorced from his body, and had gotten himself stuck between this world and the next. Parker had been…differently lucky.

Her soul had been partially unhinged from her body, allowing her to move through the spirit world while her body lay in a sleep not unlike the victims of Kraven Waters’ scheming. She had control over the situation, being able to come and go at will, from her body to a more ghostly form and then back again. She was happy with the situation- the peculiarities of the artifact hadn’t, technically, changed her nature, after all. She was still human, as far as any spell or binding or ritual intended to keep paranormal thieves at bay. What should have been a tragic moment had only made her a better thief, and Eliot wasn’t sure she’d have it any other way.

Parker rolled her eyes. “I mean, yeah, but it’s not like they can keep me in one of those things.” She turned fully to face the crew and explained. “To put them in there, you’ve got to actually cut them off from their body. It’s fixable, but the soul and body have to be separate. I’m never severed, so I’ve always got a way back.” She tilted her head. “Even put myself in one once, just to makes sure I could get loose.” She smiled softly as if it were a fond memory.

Eliot shuddered at the thought of it. “So these soul sink things, they’re movable.”

“Not just movable,” Nate said, and Eliot was long since accustomed to Nate latching on to a topic and then suddenly speaking as if he’d known it all along, “But I bet they’re worth a lot of money, too.” Parker nodded energetically. “So we have to make Waters have to sell them.”

“He’s got a bunch of disposable income right now, Nate,” Hardison commented. “You’d have to make him spend a lot of money, and real fast.”

“So we give him something worth buying…Hardison, anything look like an in?”

“He’s got a couple of legitimate businesses, but the main source of incomes are all unreliable. The dude moves mainly on his rep, not cold hard cash. I mean, only thing he spends money on really, aside from house and clothes, is betting on pit fighting events.”

Eliot’s head shot up. “He a regular at the matches?” Hardison nodded. Eliot glanced at Nate questioningly. “You wanna use that?”

Sophie grimaced. “Pit fights? Really? There isn’t something less…bloody that we can use?”

“No, no, Eliot’s right, this is perfect,” Nate countered. Sophie shook her head, looking displeased, but not quite arguing. “Hardison, what kind of bets are we talking?”

“Pretty sizable ones,” Hardison admitted.

Nate nodded. “So we sell him a fight.” Everyone but Parker and Hardison looked skeptical, and Hardison looked mostly confused. “We sell him such a big fight that he has to go with it.” Nate’s gaze flitted back and forth as his mind race. “No, bigger than that. We sell him the fights.”

“The fights?” Sophie echoed.

Nate smiled. “Every single one of them.”

*

“Yo, Eliot, you staying?” Hardison asked from the kitchen.

The rest of the day was spent planning out Nate’s con, and when things wound down over one of Eliot’s simpler steak and pasta plates, Nate and Sophie both went home. Hardison was doing dishes in the kitchen, while Parker and Eliot had sprawled out on the couch.

Parker’s legs were kicked up in Eliot’s lap while she stretched out. She raised a questioning eyebrow at Eliot, although she was grinning. It wasn’t really a necessary question; Eliot had made no move to get up in the past hour. He shouted back that he was staying for the night, and Hardison finished up what he was doing in the kitchen and came back into the living room.

“So get this,” Hardison started. “Remember that trance thing I was pulling the other night?”

“You mean when you got trapped in my cell phone for an hour because it was low battery?” Parker filled in. “And since it wasn’t connected to the network until I charged it you couldn’t go anywhere?”

Hardison looked a little embarrassed, a little annoyed for the point having been brought up. Eliot chuckled. “Yes, thank you Parker, thanks for reminding me.” She saluted him as an ‘you’re welcome,’ and Hardison stood at the edge of the couch, waiting for one of them to move over to make space. Parker raised her legs up so that Hardison could take the middle space of the couch, putting them right back across the two men when he was comfortable. “I’ve got it figured out. Or fixed, whatever. The problem was I didn’t bring any charge in with me.”

Eliot just looked at Hardison semi-patiently, waiting for the technomancer to elaborate. Their ability to understand what each other were talking about was occasionally impaired by the fact that Eliot didn’t have much magical knowledge, and even less technological knowledge at times (comparatively speaking, of course), and Hardison’s general knowledge of the para community was sometimes stunted by the fact that most of his skills were best used behind a computer screen.

Technomancy was, to be blunt, a barely existent branch of magic to begin with. There were plenty of modern theory makers that talked about technomancy and its potential, but most magic users with any amount of skill or self-respect tended to take it for granted that computer-based magic was a novice’s world. It was a thing that barely talented magicians tinkered with, and anyone worth their salt in magic went back to the branches of magic that had bodies of work surrounding it, plenty of history and proven power.

Except, of course, for a couple of younger, powerful magic users, like Hardison. And Hardison might have been the most powerful of the known technomancers, not that Eliot would ever point that out to him. Hardison had innate talent, and plenty of technological knowledge, but he’d been drawn to a type of magic whose rules were still mostly unknown, unresearched. He, and the few others like him, were building their own type of magic. Hardison was writing magical history, even if sometimes he was so wrapped up in toying around with the magic that he didn’t realize the significance of it.

Or he was so busy getting his essence trapped in powered down cell phones.

“What, does Parker need to hit the phone with her taser?” Eliot snorted, when Hardison didn’t explain further.

Hardison’s eyes went wide for a moment while he pictured that, and then shook his head. “Nah, that’s cool.”

“I can, you know,” Parker said.

“Don’t.” Parker made a poking or stabbing gesture, like she had her taser in her hand. “Nuh-uh,” Hardison insisted. “No, I just have to do a little extra spell before I do the trance, and then? Bam. Even if the phone shuts down, I can force it on and onto the network from the inside, saving myself a hell of a headache.” He beamed at having solved the problem. “Pretty sweet, right dude?”

“Long as we don’t lose our boyfriend to a bad phone battery,” Parker said. “I guess we’re fine.”

“You guess?” Hardison laughed. He jerked a thumb at Parker while he turned to look at Eliot. “You hear this? She guesses.” Eliot shrugged, a smirk tugging at the edge of his mouth. “Fine whatever. But y’all would miss my ass if I was gone, that’s all I’m saying.” There wasn’t an actual argument about that point, but Parker still raised her eyebrows conspiratorially, teasingly.

They were joking around, but something was still nagging at Eliot, and it had nothing to do with Parker or Hardison. Nothing to do with them, and everything to do with Nate. Eliot cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “Hey, heads up…” Parker and Hardison glanced over at Eliot, alert. “Sterling’s floating around.”

“Sterling?” Parker echoed. “Nate’s not-so-friendly neighborhood vampire?” She grimaced. “Why?” She moved her legs off of the two men and sat up straight, leaning forward to listen intently.

“Yeah, what’s he up to?” Hardison queried. “What kinda bullshit is Sterling doing?”

Eliot shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t see him.” Hardison opened his mouth to ask how Eliot knew about Sterling. Eliot responded by tapping at the side of his own nose. “Smelled him around Nate this morning. When I asked Nate about it, he just said not to worry about it.” Not worrying about Nate was about as unlikely as Sophie not trying to snatch a priceless statue, and not worrying when Sterling was involved, when that slimey mosquito was nearby, was impossible.

“You think Nate’s not telling us something?” Hardison asked.

“Obviously.” His tone was a little too sharp and harsh when he said it, but Hardison was used to it. Eliot simply made an effort to ease his tone when he continued. “Hell if I know what, though. But it’s gotta be something, if Nate won’t say what it is.”

“Do you think he told Sophie?” Parker wondered. Eliot shrugged and shook his head. Who knew what Nate said to Sophie at any given time. Their definition of trust and honesty between the two of them was vastly different from any definition that Eliot might have used. And Eliot’s main concern wasn’t Nate and Sophie’s relationship; it was the way in which Sterling could interfere with the crew, both in their work and professionally. The vampire took personal satisfaction out of thwarting Nate’s work, and when he stepped in, with all the authority and power that being a personal investigator for the leader of one of the major vampire clans, it could make a job go down the drain, fast.

When Sterling was in the mix, the threat of being dragged in front of one of the clans in order to face their judgment was a possibility. Even if Nate wanted to pretend like it wasn’t, everyone else knew that it was- and it was Eliot’s job to make sure that the possibility wouldn’t become a reality.

Eliot shouldn’t have to work against Nate in order to do his job, but if that was how Nate was going to play it…he would. He would have to.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of the con- in which Eliot fights, Sophie charms, and Nate observes.

Sophie’s part in the con started a week later.

Nate would have rathered that they’d taken longer to lay out the foundation of the job before Sophie went in, but, as Sophie was quick to point out, their clients were in hospitals. Mysterious illnesses meant possible treatments that could harm them. Longer hospital stays meant bills, and while the team was prepared to get enough money from the mark to pay those bills, there were simply too many risks. The risks of starting the con a little earlier were distinctly less than letting it take too long.

So the team swallowed the risks. It did mean, technically, that Eliot got hit a little less.

“Sophie, are you in position?” The bar of Falcon’s was crowded and loud. Nate slouched into himself, lifting the side of his jacket to cover part of his face while he spoke over the special comms that Hardison had made for the team. Falcon’s wasn’t the most legitimate of locations, and no one noticed a stranger covering his face from prying eyes.

“Of course, Nate.” From Nate’s position at the bar, he could see her entrance into Falcon’s. She was intentionally out of place in brown woods and dark metal of the place. Sophie Devereaux, in all her fae glory, literally shimmered, and she enjoyed any job that allowed her to show off her preternatural beauty. Sophie was a head turner when her skin didn’t shift and shine with subtle blues and greens, when her fae blood didn’t demand attention.

Nate couldn’t help but smile when he saw the other patrons look at Sophie. She smirked, looking beyond fetching in the blue dress she was wearing. The dress had a wide neckline, one that teased at a glimpse of her shoulders. She held her small clutch in front of her in her perfectly manicured hands. She scanned the crowd at the bar, at the tables.

But the con wasn’t on this floor of the bar. It was going to go down in the basement.

Eliot’s match is in fifteen minutes, guys. You may wanna get down there. Hardison’s voice technically came over the comms, but not quite. It was Hardison’s voice, built by a soft buzzing and the whirring of electricity. He wasn’t speaking to them over the comms; he was in the comms, bouncing through the connection between them. His newest toy, one that he swore was better for the team than normal comms. A middle ground between normal technology and the failed attempt at a magically created telepathic link- an endeavor that made Nate wince just to think about.

“I’m on my way,” Sophie purred, throwing dismissive look towards most individuals that looked her way. She made her way through the crowd, passing Nate by casually.

Nate turned to the bartender. “Hey, man.” He kept his voice shaky and a little slurred. “Who’s on the card tonight?”

The bartender glanced up from cleaning a glass. “Knife, and that new guy.”

Nate furrowed his brow. “Knife?” He snorted loudly. “The guy’s name is Knife? What, is his brother’s name fork?”

“Was that supposed to be funny, Nate? It wasn’t,” came Eliot’s low voice over the comm. Nate ignored him.

The bartender shrugged. “Knife’s a good fighter. Nasty piece of work- he’s bringing a lot of people in here tonight.”

“And the new guy?”

“Don’t know much about the new guy,” the bartender admitted. “ ‘Cept that he’s fought every night this week and won. Fought twice on Tuesday night. Pretty sure a couple of people are coming in to see if his luck runs out tonight.” The bartender bared his teeth in something vaguely reminscent of a grin. It reminded Nate of Eliot before taking down a couple of creeps, actually. Eliot must have felt right at home in Falcon’s.

Nate nodded, as if nodding to himself. “Anymore room in there?”

“Standing room only, but yeah,” the bartender said. He gestured towards a door in the back of the bar that clearly led towards the basement. A stocky woman stood guard there; the paler undertones of her brown skin said she was probably a vampire. Sophie was speaking to her, pulling a pre-bought ticket. Unlike Nate, she’d have a seat, and it would be right up front- next to the mark. “Twenty-five bucks gets you in. Bets made when you step inside- you still got about ten minutes to make ‘em.”

Slowly getting off his stool, Nate turned towards the basement. Hardison made a sound that was like a computer whistling. Nate winced. “Hardison? Don’t do that.”

“Yeah, Hardison,” Eliot growled. “Next time you do that, I’m breaking your back.”

Sorry, sorry, came the apology. I was just a little shocked- twenty-five? That doesn’t seem cheap to anybody else?

“They don’t need to charge that much,” Nate replied. “After all, most everybody down there is betting on the match. Not to mention drinks upstairs…no, the entrance fees aren’t where they make their money. They make their money using people like Eliot.”

Nate paid the bouncer at the door and was allowed down into the basement of Falcon’s, one of the neighborhood’s most notorious pit fighting locations. At once, Nate was hit with the smell of sweat and the roar of noise from the crowd. He could only imagine the scents that someone more sensitive, like Eliot, would pick up- blood and beer and adrenaline, would be Nate’s first guesses.

The basement of Falcon’s was bigger than the upstairs, the size of a small movie theater. The entire space was slanted downwards, sloping into the center where the main event was. The standing room area where Nate had to find a place, was the highest point in the room, and there were small, close circuit screens hanging from the walls, because it was almost impossible to get a good view from there.

Closer in, where Nate could make out Sophie, there were several rows of seats. Sophie gracefully managed to move through the crowd, finding her seat and sitting down. Just past Sophie’s row was the pit itself.

The pit was shallow, with the walls of it only coming up a few feet. It was wide, with the concrete floor of it covered in a few inches of sand. In places even shadier than Falcon’s, or more traditional, the term pit was used more literally; the fighters had to use ladders to get in and out of the pit. This one, however, was easier for crowds to watch.

There was a swinging door on two opposite parts of the circle, each capable of being locked from the outside of the pit. At one of those doors, Nate saw Eliot and Parker. Eliot, dressed like most pit fighters, in sweatpants and a heavy hooded sweatshirt, was watching the other door, sizing up his opponent- a large human-looking opponent that Nate knew nothing about, aside from the fact that he was called ‘Knife.’ Parker was playing fretting girlfriend, a role that was made all the more difficult by the fact that Nate couldn’t remember the last time any of them had been worried about Eliot in a one on one match. For what it was worth, she seemed to be handling it fine.

“What do you have on Knife?” Nate asked. The loudness of the crowd prevented anyone from hearing or registering that Nate was talking. He kept his eyes on the back of Sophie’s head.

Not much, Hardison admitted. Pit-fighting isn’t exactly a sport with a big internet presence, know what I mean? I’m working on it.

“Make it quick, Hardison,” Nate told him.

Excuse you, I’ll have you know that there’s like two forums on the internet in total about pit-fighting. Two. And both of them basically their own code language going, so normal humans can’t figure out what’s what. I not only have to find information about the fighter, but I’ve got to transl-

“I’ll handle this then,” Sophie interjected smoothly. She was looking up towards the end of her row, where the mark was moving to sit down.

Kraven Waters was a big man, thick with recently neglected muscles. The crowd parted for him naturally, as if he was such a regular that the crowd as a whole moved around in order to accommodate him. He was dressed, like Sophie, nicer than the crowd dictated for the night. A sports jacket, a dark blue oxford shirt, and slacks. His hair was slicked back. When he sat down, Sophie made sure she didn’t look at him directly.

From the back of the crowd, Nate stared.

Waters threw Sophie a look after he’d seated himself. He narrowed his eyes; she made quite an impression, especially on a stranger. She returned the look and spoke. “I’m afraid I don’t know too much about our fighters tonight. I was simply told that this would be quite the match.” The accent she used was a light london accent- her character may have been born in England, but time away had worn away the accent.

Demon or not, few men could say no to Sophie’s softest smile. Waters was no exception. “Well, it’ll be a good fight if this new kid keeps up his streak, but who knows? Up against Knife?” He made a sound of disbelief. “Kid’s out of his league.”

There was a distinct, low growl over the comms. Down, Eliot. I promise you, you’re the biggest dog in the whole yard.

“Settle down, you two,” Nate whispered. “And listen up.”

“How far out of his league?” Sophie inquired.

Waters raised an eyebrow. “Why? You’re not the kid’s agent, are you?”

Sophie laughed, bringing a hand up to her mouth. “Oh, no. Not at all. I’m interested in all the talent tonight.” She made sure that her line sounded suspicious, even though she continued to be at her most charming. “So just how good is this Knife?”

“Knife’s not exactly a local celebrity yet, but he’s good. In his last fight, other guy nearly lost his head. Literally.”

“He uses weapons?” Sophie didn’t need to pretend to sound disgusted. “That’s so very…cheap.”

“Weapons?” Waters’ laughter was a booming, aggravating noise. “Knife doesn’t use anything that he wasn’t born with.”

Sophie didn’t press the point; she let that sentence float in the air, for Eliot to make whatever he wanted of it. Nate glanced over at Eliot and Parker; Eliot was whispering something to Parker, his hand resting casually at her waist. He didn’t look much more concerned than he had a few moments earlier. Nate could hear his whisper over the comms, while Sophie engaged Kraven in a discussion about Eliot’s quick rise in the local pit fighting scene.

“Claws, Parker. Knife’s sporting claws.” Parker’s lips were pressed together in a thin line, considering Eliot’s words.

You mean claws like Wolverine? Or like, you’ve got claws?

“No, Hardison, not like Wolverine,” Eliot snapped impatiently. “Don’t be an idiot. Guy smells like a demon, so claws aren’t a shocker.”

“This isn’t going to be a problem, is it Eliot?” Nate questioned.

It was Parker who snorted, unimpressed. “Please. Eliot’ll probably turn the guy into shish kabobs using his own claws.” She rolled her eyes dramatically while Eliot looked at her, deeply disturbed by the image she’d produced. She noticed the look, but misinterpreted it. “What? Like you don’t like shish kabobs.”

Eliot shuddered for a moment, and opened his mouth to speak again. This time, however, he was cut off but the tinny sound of an announcer over the pit’s speaker system announcing the fight. Eliot removed his hand from Parker’s side and pulled off his sweatshirt. Underneath he was wearing a gray undershirt. Parker took the hoodie and took a seat.

“Good luck, Eliot,” Nate muttered, knowing that Eliot would neither hear him, nor need the luck. It did make Parker smile to hear it, though.

 

In a fight, Eliot Spencer was a beast.

It wasn’t a play on words, or some clever pun. It was just a brutal truth. In a pit fight like the one that he was in, he really couldn’t afford to be anything but. Early on it was clear that ‘Knife,’ whoever he was, had some training beyond the fights themselves; he moved similar to a unit of demonic mercenaries that Eliot had fought overseas- not good enough to be one of them, but he was probably trained by one or two of them.

And he had those claws. Talons, really, talons that were hidden behind a human form until the announcer called the fight. Then, with a rumbling, pained groan, Knife’s arms shapeshifted. They were longer, bigger, greenish-brown muscled weapons, his hands changing into impressively wicked talons that he wielded like five conjoined blades. He stabbed and slashed with them with the expertise of someone who’d been in the pits for years.

He was bigger and taller than Eliot to begin with. Fortunately, Eliot had two advantages. One, he was used to fighting things bigger and taller than him.

Two, he could get bigger.

Unlike the demon’s, Eliot’s shift wasn’t painful. On the contrary, it was exhilarating, the exact kind of adrenaline boost that won him fights. A halfway shift meant the ear piece was uncomfortable, but not so ill fit that it would fall out of his ears. The sweat pants and undershirt tore and fell away as Eliot changed, as he grew another half foot. He could feel the growth and change of muscles, the jolt and thrill of the semi-mental shift. His senses, already sensitive, expanded and exploded. The smell of the pit, the very way that the floor of the pit felt under his paws…it felt damned good.

And manbeast is a go, came Hardison’s buzz over the earpiece. Eliot couldn’t tell him to fuck off, but the frustrated growl, he hoped, was enough to convey that message clearly. I’m just saying, you do that thing, you’re a little scary, that’s all. Less fluffy puppy and more-

“That’s the point, Hardison,” Nate reminded the technomancer. “And the only thing scarier than how Eliot looks, is what he’s about to do to our friend Knife.” Eliot narrowly dodged a swipe at the head. “Eliot, do your thing.”

It was more a request that Eliot not hold back than a command. A request that Eliot was more than willing to oblige.

Knife wasn’t expecting to fight someone that was trained like Eliot was. He wasn’t expecting someone who’d gone about against four of those demonic mercenaries and taken them all down. There was nothing remotely fair about this fight. There hadn’t been a fair fight since Eliot had stepped into the pit.

Monday night. A siren fighter who tried to lull him by humming during the match- so Hardison insisted on playing techno music through the ear piece the whole match.

Tuesday night. A vampire who managed to bite Eliot’s arm- only to have Eliot snap his neck for the effort.

Wednesday night. A snake demon who’d wrapped itself around Eliot trying to smother him- who Eliot had nearly tied into a knot.

Thursday night. Another vampire, one who liked to bring silver tipped knives into the fight- so Parker picked his pocket beforehand.

Friday night. The alpha wolf for a small neighborhood pack- who Eliot beat by submission.

And now Saturday night was going to end with a lug of a demon named Knife getting his talons stuck in barricade of the pit, while Eliot wrenched the other arm around the demon’s back.

All right, now knock him out with that head thing you love, Hardison said. If this dude pulls out of that wall, he’s gonna be piss as fuck.

“No, Eliot. Don’t knock him out,” Nate interjected again. As Knife struggled, Eliot stayed above him, a knee in his back and the claws of his other hand at the back of Knife’s neck. “Get taken off of him, Eliot. I want them to think you went feral.”

Eliot couldn’t tell Nate how utterly ridiculous that sounded. There wasn’t enough time, nor did his vocal chords currently work in a way that allowed him to. That never stopped Hardison, though. Are you out your mind, Nate? These aren’t a bunch of humans. They can tell when that sort of thing is being faked. They can smell it, or- or feel it, or whatever it is that a room full of paras do. Especially counting the number of werewolves in the room. You cannot fake feral, Nate you just-

Nate’s voice was calm and assured when he asked Eliot, “Can you do it, Eliot?”

It wasn’t a real question; Eliot had the idea that Nate already knew the answer.

It was a nasty little trick, one that was easy to do, and harder to maintain control of. Eliot had learned to do it while in Argentina a few years back, from a gorgeous Beta who’d gotten her pack to take him in for awhile while she nursed him back to health. If he’d been able to smile at the thought of it right then, he would have; but he had to keep all his focus on the job at hand. And it wasn’t keeping Knife at bay.

Faking feral required pushing just to the edge of feral without tipping over the line. Eliot felt the wave of it rush over him, tempting him to just give into it. It would be easier- less thinking, less planning. Just instinct and, in the midst of this fight, violence. Both things that Eliot already relied on, was already good at.

He tightened his grip on his prey’s neck and growled.

Over the comms, Nate and Hardison were speaking. Arguing. Words were difficult to follow while focusing on the immediate space around him; Eliot could catch parts of Hardison’s words, but they were too mechanical, like listening to his voice over a recording. It wasn’t real, not really, and it didn’t do much more beyond register. Nate’s words were completely lost- Eliot could strain and listen, but he trusted Nate. Had to trust Nate. He focused instead on keeping himself from snapping the prey’s neck, on keeping himself from tearing into the creature underneath him. When his hand spasmed and he nearly squeezed too tight, he remembered what it was like the last time he’d really gone feral, the last time he’d lost it.

The thought of it pissed him off enough that it let him maintain control. Trust Nate, he told himself, pushing the words through his mind slowly and painfully. Trust the plan. Trust the crew. Trust pack.

“All right, Parker, now.” The only one of Nate’s words that really meant much of anything was Parker’s name.

“El!”

Parker’s voice cut through every thought and nonthought in Eliot’s mind. She sounded worried- her heartbeat was pounding in his ears, suddenly, his attention immediately caught by her shout. Simultaneously, every instinct said to pay attention to Parker, while every bit of human in Eliot reasserted itself to the sound of Parker’s voice. As if she’d asked him to, his body shifted back into human form. He released Knife’s arm- other hand still on Knife’s neck- before hauling back and punching Knife good and hard in the side of the head. Knife’s body dropped in a slump, his talons still stuck in the barricade.

An announcer’s voice signaled Eliot’s win. Eliot moved away from Knife, shaking his head as if he could shake out the remains of his wolf. He walked- stumbled a little, Knife must have gotten in a good hit or two before Eliot had gotten the advantage- towards the exit of the pit.

Parker stood waiting for him. “I brought you a robe.” Over her arm is a large terrycloth bathrobe. She handed it to Eliot, who immediately put it on and belted it. Back in the pit, the remains of the cloths he’d been wearing were on the ground. The bathrobe was black and warm. His eyes swept the crowd; for a brief instant, his gaze fell on the mark in the crowd, who was staring at him with narrowed, intrigued eyes. Eliot looked past the mark, further into the crowd. Where everyone else was cheering or cursing the win, Nate stood impassively in the background.

Nate nodded at him.

Eliot looked away and glanced back at Parker. “That was good.”

Parker shrugged. She looked far less worried now than she had in the pit- it was all a part of the act, Eliot realized. She’d gotten good at mimicking physical panic. He’d tell her as much later on. “It was Nate’s idea. He would have had Hardison do it, but he thought that with Hardison not being here here, with a heartbeat and a scent and everything, that maybe it wouldn’t work as well.”

Nate planned for everything, Eliot thought to himself. He always had a plan, and a way out. Even if he didn’t see fit to tell Eliot what it was. Eliot grunted. “Wouldn’t have worked with Hardison. Barely sounds like himself through these things.”

Barely sounds like himself? Hardison sounded less like the panic was faked. What the hel do you think I sound like, exactly? And since when can you-

“Go get Eliot dressed, Parker,” Nate said. “You’ve got a couple of minutes before Waters comes your way. Sophie’s almost finished with him.”

 

Nate was only half right. As far as Sophie was concerned, it was very likely that Kraven Waters was almost done with her.

The fight had completely distracted Kraven. It was as if Sophie had faded into the background- something that she was in no way accustomed to having unless she wanted it to. She knew that Kraven had to pay attention to Eliot for the fight, but he was absorbed by the action playing out in front of them. Maybe, if Sophie had needed to pick his pocket, this would have been helpful, but that wasn’t what she was there for.

She was there to sell him something. And she couldn’t sell if he barely knew she existed.

It was worse when Eliot went feral. Sophie heard Nate ask if Eliot could fake it, but for once, she knew that Hardison was very likely correct. It wasn’t something that could simply be faked, or lied about. No, that was something that had to be felt, made real…and Eliot had made it very real. Sophie could feel the shift along the outside of her skin, that wave of primal magic that came with werewolves. She was used to it meaning that a plan had gone south, and that the best course of action was for her to get out of the way fast, but Parker seemed to have snapped Eliot out of it.

Kraven had felt the shift too, just like everyone else that had watched the fight. Unlike Sophie, who couldn’t help but be a tiny bit revolted at feral wolves, Kraven leaned forward in his seat with a wide smile. Completely out of his line of sight, Sophie glanced over her shoulder into the crowd where Nate was watching. Narrowing her eyes, she mouthed at him, demanding to know what he was up to.

As per usual, there was no direct answer from Nate. “Bloody hell,” she huffed, turning back around in her seat.

The match was over and won with a roar of excitement from the crowd. She lifted a hand to her ear automatically; when Kraven stood up and cheered with them, Sophie stood up as well, clapping and pretending to be at least half as excited as Kraven was.

“I thought you said the man was out of his league,” Sophie shout-whispered as she leaned into Kraven, so that he could hear her in spite of the crowd. “He looked well matched enough, if you ask me.”

Kraven snorted, but his eyes were still glued to where Eliot and Parker were walking away. “Looks like I was wrong.”

Something in the mirth in his voice made Sophie suspicious. She turned her head away from Kraven so that she could whisper, very softly, into the comms. “He bet on Eliot, didn’t he?”

Made a sweet penny doing it too, Hardison said.

Sophie could have cursed, but instead she just cleared her throat. They wanted Kraven to pay Eliot attention, she reminded herself. And it helped that he made a little money off of Eliot at first. It helped sell the whole bit- it didn’t mean that Sophie had to like it. She would rather a plan that meant that Kraven was on a downspiral the entire time. Or, at least, lost a little more money from the offset.

“Well, well, well,” Sophie said. “Did you downplay his skills to everyone who asked you about him, them?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kraven replied as the crowd started to settle down. He didn’t sit, however, and so Sophie didn’t either.

“You acted as if he wasn’t your fighter,” Sophie purred. She was careful not to add any magic to her words, not to use any charm except the charm that she could drum up without any of her more mystical assets. While she was sure that she could magically charm him a little bit without being noticed, she didn’t like just pulling that out for every part of the con. No, she liked to stay in practice. “As if he wasn’t still…on the market.”

There. Kraven pretended as if he didn’t notice her wording, but Sophie saw the minute reaction at the words ‘on the market’. He registered that she was on to something. Very good.

“He’s not my fighter,” Kraven assured her. “He’s unsponsored. For now.”

“He’s going to get a lot of offers soon enough,” Sophie replied. “From bigger, better pits. More legitimate places. Places with bigger betting pools. A fighter like him is going to catch someone’s eye very quickly. And that sponsor will be very, very lucky.”

Kraven pressed his lips together in thought for a moment. “Yes, yes they would be.” It was his turn to clear his throat. “If you would excuse me, uh, Ms…”

“Miss Charlotte Dumont.” Like a magician pulling out a coin, she produced a business card. She smiled, and it was in that expression that she let a little of her magic do its work. She saw a few heads in the crowd turn to look at her. A side effect, but nothing to worry about. For a flash, Kraven stared at the card. “If you’re ever interested in talking about…fighters, Mr. Waters.”

“I didn’t give you my name,” Kraven said warily.

“Oh, you didn’t have to.”

He stared at her for a moment longer, suspiciously, while her charm did its work. He took the card carefully, pocketing it in his back pocket before making his way through the crowd down to towards the pit- and the fighter’s exit, Sophie noticed with some satisfaction.

“Well, my part’s done, for now,” Sophie told Nate. “Parker and Eliot? You’re up.”

Eliot snorted. “You say that like I wasn’t already.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In character, Eliot and Parker 'meet' the mark.

Personally, Parker throught that Kraven looked seedy. More seedy than their usual mark. He was dressed too nice, stuck out too much, even in a crowd of big men and women like the crowds that a pit fight lured in. It was more than the suit jacket, more than the slacks; it was the way that he didn’t look natural in any of it, comfortable. Sophie could wear an evening gown to a fast food place and look like she belonged; Kraven would have struggled to look natural in a nice sweater and expensive jeans.

And he was pasty pale, too. Like his skin was on the fake side.

“Just don’t stab the guy, Parker, all right?” Eliot had listened to Parker’s mini-rant about their mark for the past few minutes. He hadn’t commented for most of it, instead just settling into the cheaply constructed locker room that they’d been ushered into after the fight so that he could get dressed. “And pass me my boxers.”

Parker had a change of clothes for Eliot in an intentionally ragged green duffel bag. It looked like it had been bought from an Army and Navy thrift shop, because that was exactly where they’d picked it up. Aside from the pair of boxers Parker tossed Eliot’s way, they’d bought most of his other clothes for the con there too: the black cargo pants, the loose t-shirt with NAVY printed across it, the worn boots. He dressed quickly enough that he was pulling on the t-shirt when Kraven finally barged into the locker room like he owned the place.

Maybe he did, Parker thought. She hadn’t asked Hardison for that particular detail, and with Kraven in such close quarters, she couldn’t ask over the comms either. She pasted a fake, soft-and-shy smile (practiced at length with Sophie so it wouldn’t come off as a threatening baring of teeth), and raised her eyebrows curiously towards Kraven. “Uh…yes? Can we…help you?” She used the russian accent that she, Sophie and Nate had agreed upon the night before.

“That was a great fight,” Kraven said, not responding to her as much as he was making an entrance for himself. The room was not very large-it might have been used for storage before the basement had been restructured for pit fights- and Kraven filled up a lot of it. He knew that, and attempted to use it to his advantage. Make himself the focal point of the room.

But Parker was very used to being in enclosed spaces, and it didn’t bother or threaten her one bit.

“Parker,” Nate’s voice was very, very soft in her ear. “He has to think you’re malleable. Both of you.” She was one hundred percent sure Nate had to be some kind of psychic with the way he was always able to do that. Very reluctantly, she faked a flinch when Kraven grabbed a folding chair and dragged it across the the floor, opening it so that he could sit in front of them.

“Thanks…do I know you?” Eliot frowned, pulling his hair back into a ponytail, watching Kraven with careful eyes. Careful and scared eyes, Parker noticed. When Kraven’s head turned towards Eliot, she made a face at him; even when the anxiety was fake on Eliot’s face- especially when it was fake- it made her jittery. It fit him like suits fit Kraven.

Kraven didn’t know Eliot like Parker knew Eliot, couldn’t read him like she could. A big serpent’s grin spread across his face, and he held his hands up. “Hey there, kid, relax.” It was a testament to their professionalism that Eliot didn’t twitch at being called a kid. “I just wanna talk to you about these last few fights you’ve been having. Won me quite a bit of money. I like winning money, which means that I like you…your name’s Luke, right? That’s the name you gave the fight coordinators.” Eliot and Parker shared a look with each other. “I’m just asking. If it’s a fake name, don’t worry- it isn’t like the pit managers care about that too much, you know?”

“No, no, Lucas is my real name,” Eliot assured him, shoving his hands into his pockets awkwardly. “Lucas Gold. And you are?” It was strange, how small and vulnerable Eliot could make himself look, in spite of the broadness of his shoulders, the thickness of his frame. It was even more amazing how this looked nothing like Eliot when he was really vulnerable. Parker had seen it a few times at this point. She was glad she was thief normally, instead of one of the grifters. She couldn’t do this part constantly.

“My name is Waters. Kraven Waters.”

He said that shit with a straight face like he doesn’t sound like some character from a bad action movie. Parker had to keep herself from snorting at Hardison’s joke. She covered it with a cough, a very natural sounding one, in her opinion. The strange look that both Kraven and Eliot threw her, however, said otherwise.

Kraven continued, as if Parker hadn't made a peep. She was barely a blip to him- yet. She chewed on the inside of her cheek and moved in behind Eliot. “Like I said, I’m a fan. And when someone’s making me money like that, I like to know about them. Make them friends of mine.” There was a low threat to his voice, a clear indication of what happened to people who didn’t become his friends. It was good that he thought that Parker and Eliot would respond to that; that was the point.

Didn’t mean she didn’t want to do exactly what Eliot had asked her not to do. Didn’t mean she didn’t want to stab him right in his carotid artery.

“What pack are you from?” Eliot chewed his lip, holding back from answering. “Don’t be like that, Luke. You’re either a new wolf or your pack’s moving in on somebody’s territory. Either way, wolf business isn’t my business, not like that, anyway.” He adjusted his jacket, leaned back as much as he could comfortably without tilting the chair. “Fighters like you don’t just spring up unless there’s a story. No one could keep that kind of skill under wraps.”

It was all in the eyes. Sophie told Parker that all the time- unless, of course, she was explaining how to make sure they don’t look into your eyes- and Parker still struggled with it. She could do it, with proper motivation, but Sophie and Nate were able to reach another level with the way their eyes fed into their roles. Hardison could do it as long as he didn’t go too far with it, and Eliot naturally kept his eyes ‘scary’ unless forced to do anything else.

So when Eliot made an effort, with wide, slightly ashamed eyes, it was jarring. He pressed his lips together for a minute, turning to look away. Parker naturally paused before speaking to Kraven. “He doesn’t have one.”

Kraven’s eyebrows raised, and Parker could feel the plan starting to coalesce in Kraven’s head. A lone wolf, no pack to back him up. Vulnerable, probably malleable. A target. A cash cow. Kraven motioned at Eliot. “No pack? Are you serious kid? That’s…impressive, that you manage to hold your own like that without one. Not many wolves could.”

Eliot shrugged. “Fighting and Yelena’s all I got.” He gestured towards Parker. “Can’t afford to mess that up, you know?”

Kraven smiled broadly again, and Parker wanted to recoil. It was only Eliot, slipping a hand into hers, that prevented her from moving. He held her hand tightly. “No, no you can’t.” 


End file.
